Heritage Agencies and the Conservation of Brazilian Modern Masterpieces: a Partial Report

Heritage Agencies and the Conservation of Brazilian Modern Masterpieces: A Partial Report Carlos Eduardo Dias Comas Faculty of Architecture, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT Heritage agencies have been protecting modern architecture in Brazil since 1948, starting with Os- car Niemeyer’s Pampulha Chapel. So far 75 modern works have been listed mostly because of their artistic value. Listing prevents demolition. Unfortunately, it does not ensure proper conservation, and many interventions have disfigured works of architecture listed as modern masterpieces. Among those tolerated by the Brazilian heritage agencies, an early one is the roofing of the balconies of Oscar Niemeyer’s Ouro Preto Grand Hotel. Among those ap- proved were the construction of theatres diverging from those designed but unexecuted at the time of the listing, and renovations associated with the introduction or updating of air conditioning systems. The former included one by Niemeyer himself, at his Ibirapuera Park complex, and another at Affonso Eduardo Reidy’s Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro. The latter included the Pampulha Dance Hall, two Ibirapuera Park Pavilions, and the Planalto Palace. The paper analyses these retrofits along with the restoration project of Reidy’s Pedregulho Housing Estate, and discusses the connections of the heritage agencies’ stands regarding these interventions with scientism and the traditions of the conservation field. It suggests a bias of the agencies toward affirmation of historical values and celebration of picturesque disorder, and defends the need for their reorientation towards affirmation of the modern compositional logic. KEYWORDS modern architecture, heritage agency, Brazil, conservation case studies Received April 10, 2018; accepted June 6, 2018. SPHAN, DPHAN, IPHAN and Other de Andrade was a lawyer by training, but most of his suc- Heritage Agencies in Brazil cessors have been architects, remarkable exceptions being Brazil Builds: New and Old 1652–1942 (Goodwin and graphic designer Aluisio Magalhães (1927–1982), presi- Kidder-Smith 1942) is the title of the 1943 exhibition dent from 1979 to 1982, who emphasised the recognition at MoMA that publicised the emergence of a Brazilian of cultural goods by their social value instead of their es- school of modern architecture led by Lucio Costa (1902– thetic values or erudite characteristics, and historian Katia 1998) and based on Rio de Janeiro (Comas 2002). Surpris- Bogéa, who was inaugurated in 2016, the first president to ingly, given the revolutionary stance of modern architects rise from the rank and file (Schlee 2017a, 2017b). elsewhere, Costa and his colleagues were also staunch In its 80 years of existence, the agency changed supporters of SPHAN—Serviço do Patrimônio Histórico names many times, as shown in its informative web site, e Artístico Nacional, an agency of the Ministry of Educa- www.iphan.gov.br. It became DPHAN—Diretoria do tion founded in 1937 to protect the Brazilian heritage, pre- Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional in 1946, and sided by Rodrigo Mello Franco de Andrade (1898–1969) IPHAN—Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico until 1967. Indeed, Costa would soon be employed by the Nacional in 1994. It is now sub-ordinated to the Minis- agency, as many other talented modern architects, includ- try of Culture instead of the Ministry of Education. With ing for a while Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012); Costa would headquarters in Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro, the agency become Director of Studies and Listings in 1946, a posi- comprises twenty-seven state-based branches, called tion he kept until his retirement in 19721. Mello Franco Super-intendências, and twenty-seven city-based offices C. E. Dias Comas 35 around the country, called Escritórios Técnicos, plus four because of their artistic value above and beyond any utili- special units, one in Brasilia (Centro Nacional de Ar- tarian traits, including exceptional works of architecture. queologia, dealing with the conservation of archeological The last book, Livro do Tombo das Artes Aplicadas, the remains), and three in Rio de Janeiro (Sítio Burle Marx, Book of Applied Arts Listing, is where cultural goods where the famed landscape architect lived and worked, are registered because of their artistic value in associa- a kind of botanical garden and plant nursery; Paço Im- tion with its utilitarian function, including some kinds perial, the former viceregal and imperial administrative of architecture, as well as examples of the decorative arts, center turned into an exhibition gallery; a museum for graphic arts and furniture. folklore and popular culture, Centro Nacional do Fol- Anyone can propose a listing to IPHAN, from within clore e Cultura Popular). The major divisions of IPHAN the agency or outside it, as long as the request is accom- are DEPAM, the Department of the Material Heritage, panied by written and graphic documentation justifying and DPI, the Department of Immaterial Heritage, which the proposal. DEPAM analyses the request, and submits work with members of the Advisory Council in two sec- its conclusions to the Chamber of Architecture and Ur- torial chambers, one for Architecture and Urbanism, the banism. The conclusions will be exposed and discussed in other for Immaterial Heritage. Chaired by the agency’s public hearings, and a certain amount of time is allotted president, the Advisory Council is composed by thirteen for eventual contestation and judicial appreciation. Then representatives from the civilian society, three representa- the dossier is submitted to the Advisory Council, which tives from ministries (Education, Tourism and Cities), hands it to one of its members for analysis and report, fol- two from federal agencies (IBRAM—Instituto Brasileiro lowed by written and verbal presentation, discussion and de Museus, dealing with museums, and IBAMA—Insti- voting. State heritage agencies complement the mission of 2 tuto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais the national heritage agency since the 1960s , and munici- renováveis, dealing with the environment), and four from pal heritage agencies since the 1980s. They all follow the national agency lead in procedural matters. national professional associations of architects, archeolo- gists, and anthropologists, along with the Brazilian branch of ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Listing Modern Masterpieces Sites). The Advisory Council has always been IPHAN’s The national agency listed for the first time a modern maximum authority regarding listings. Protected cultural building in 1947, Niemeyer’s Chapel of St. Francis of goods were from the outset listed in four books, called Assisi at the Pampulha complex, a garden suburb of Belo Livros do Tombo. Horizonte. It had been completed two years before, and The first book is Livro do Tombo Arqueológico, Etnográ- was menaced of demolition by the municipal authori- fico e Paisagístico, the Book of Archeological, Ethnograph- ties. Recommending the chapel’s listing in the Fine Arts ic and Landscape Listing, where cultural goods are regis- Book, Costa said the building had become a ‘precocious tered because of: ruin’ (Costa 1999), notwithstanding its reception as a a. their archaeological value, as vestiges of prehistoric or masterpiece by prominent intellectuals in the country and historical human occupation; abroad. The following year the agency listed in the Fine b. their ethnographic or reference value for certain social Arts Book the monumental Ministry of Education, by groups; Costa and a team including Niemeyer and Affonso Ed- c. their landscape value, encompassing both natural areas uardo Reidy, at once reinforcing the status of the modern and manmade places including gardens as well as cities architects at the agency and protecting the building, de- or architectural ensembles. signed in 1936 and inaugurated in 1945, against eventual The second book is Livro do Tombo Histórico, the Book disfigurement. One decade later, Costa asked for the list- of Historic Listing, where cultural goods are registered ing in that same book of the Seaplane Station of Rio de because of their connections with memorable events or Janeiro, designed and built from 1937 to 1938 by Attilio moments in the history of Brazil, comprising real estate Correa Lima, Renato Soeiro, Jorge Ferreira, Renato Mes- (buildings, farms, landmarks, fountains, bridges, old quita e Tomás Estrela, and menaced of demolition by the downtowns, for example) as well as chattels (images, fur- imminent construction of a coastal highway. The wood niture, paintings and woodcuts, among other pieces). The building that housed the President of Brazil during the third book is Livro do Tombo das Belas Artes, the Book construction of Brasilia was listed in the Historic Book of Fine Arts Listing, where cultural goods are registered in 1959. Two preventive listings in the sixties involved 36 BUILT HERITAGE 2018 / 2 incomplete works, Niemeyer’s Brasilia Cathedral and the Anyway, the major surviving works of the Carioca Flamengo Park, with gardens by Burle Marx, and build- school and some works of the subsequent Paulista school ings by Reidy, including the Museum of Modern Art of are now listed, and cannot be demolished without permis- Rio de Janeiro, one of the links connecting the Carioca3 sion from the heritage agencies. Listing is no longer con- School, of purist connotations, to the later Paulista School, troversially preventive. Brazilian modern architecture is of brutalist connotations (Zein 2005; Comas 2015, 40–67). already fifty years of age or close to it. Its works are ancient The Cathedral was listed in the Fine Arts Book; Flamengo enough to warrant deliberate conservation and, if con- Park, in the Landscape Book. served, recycling responsive to cultural changes, retrofit to No building was listed during the Magalhães adminis- comply with technological advances and stricter codes; it tration, modern or otherwise. The pioneering Modernist is generally accepted that the best method of conserving a House of 1930 by Gregori Warchavchik in São Paulo, and historic building is to keep it in active use (Ireland 7.3.1).

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